Luis Rocha - Papal decree

‘Understood,’ the radio responded.

‘Turn around,’ he said to his own driver.

‘What?’

‘Turn around, now.’ As Daniel said this, he grabbed the wheel and turned it toward the left, to the clamor of horns and squealing brakes.

The Volvo accelerated again to the intersection with Merulana and turned left toward the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore. It was a suicidal high-speed drive at over sixty miles an hour with traffic and blowing horns.

‘Straight to Cavour,’ Daniel ordered, and grabbed the radio. ‘Straight to Cavour, Flavian.’

‘Understood,’ came over the radio.

They finally came out on Cavour and careened left with no concern for the bus coming from Termini, which had to slam on its brakes to let them pass.

‘Idiot,’ the bus driver shouted, among other insults.

The GPS indicated that the Mercedes had stopped a few hundred feet from them near the juncture with Via Giovanni Lanza, and they could see it, badly parked, with a wheel on the sidewalk and all the doors open.

Daniel feared the worst. His chest tightened with anxiety, and sweat broke out on his face. The tires squealed when the Volvos stopped abruptly near the Mercedes, one on each side. Before leaving the car, Daniel could see that no one was inside the Mercedes. Shit! He should never have permitted this. Shit!

There was no sign of the secretary, Cardinal William, Father Schmidt, or the other two agents. As the commander, Daniel could not show weakness or desperation, but that’s what he felt, complete disorientation and, despite feeling cold as ice, an immensely destructive volcano within.

‘What the hell happened?’

Tarcisio couldn’t believe what his eyes had seen. He would have preferred a knife to the heart, bleeding away the life God gave him. No one should have to suffer such an enormous betrayal.

A man had appeared in the middle of the street, pointing a gun at them. The driver’s first action was to accelerate; since he was shielded, a pointed gun didn’t pose any threat, but then something seemingly impossible happened. Schmidt and the guard next to the driver stuck guns into the driver’s head.

‘Stop the car immediately,’ Schmidt ordered.

‘Wha… what are you doing, Hans?’ Tarcisio asked uneasily.

‘Shut up,’ Schmidt said coldly. His look was glacial, cavernous. Tarcisio had never seen it before, and he shivered.

William was likewise stupefied.

‘Drop the gun, Hugo,’ Tarcisio ordered the agent who was pointing his gun at his colleague.

Schmidt slapped him in the face. ‘I told you not to talk unless spoken to.’

They could hear Daniel’s voice on the radio. Attention, Adrian. Pull over and wait for us. We’re stuck behind the bus.

Schmidt pressed the gun tighter into the back of the driver’s neck. ‘Got it? Even your boss is ordering you to stop. You don’t want the secretary to see your brains splattered all over the windshield, do you?’

The driver didn’t give in. He was trained to die for the pope or in his name. That was God’s will.

‘Stop the car, my son,’ Tarcisio ordered. ‘It’s not worth risking your life for me.’

Adrian obeyed the cardinal’s order and put on the brakes. He was shocked to see his colleague pointing a gun at him, but said nothing. No one truly knows anyone.

‘Good boy,’ Schmidt said scornfully.

The man outside the car came up beside the driver, opened the door, and plunged a syringe into his neck. It took the driver about five seconds to lose consciousness, and then he was thrown in the trunk of the Mercedes, and the stranger took over the driving.

‘It’s good to see you, Nicolas,’ Schmidt greeted him.

‘Good evening, Professor Aloysius,’ Nicolas welcomed him and hit the accelerator.

Aloysius? He calls himself Aloysius? Was it he who had misled him to negotiate with Adolph? Tarcisio asked himself. He was, in fact, a complete unknown, this Schmidt who turned a gun on the two prelates with a forced smile.

‘They’re everywhere,’ Tarcisio whispered hesitantly to William, who continued watching all this without a word or a reaction.

Schmidt had a cynical smile on his face. ‘Did you think you could deceive the society?’

‘How can you do something like this?’ Tarcisio asked in consternation. He remembered Ursino and… Trevor. God, he’d been so blind. ‘Were you the one who killed Ursino and Trevor?’ His cracking voice indicated defeat.

‘I’m responsible for Trevor. Ursino liked younger men, like Nicolas.’ Schmidt was enjoying himself. ‘Isn’t that so, Jonas?’ he joked with the driver.

‘How could you? After all you defend…’ Tarcisio interrupted.

‘Explanations, explanations. Let’s not talk about the past. It’s useless. It can’t be changed. You know I’m a man of the present, and presently you have the parchments that we want.’

‘And you think that kidnapping the secretary of state and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is going to get them for you?’ William interrupted, recovering his self-control.

‘We do.’

At that moment Daniel’s voice was heard over the radio again. Attention. No order was given to proceed, Adrian. Attention, Adrian. Report your position.

‘Turn off that shit,’ Schmidt, also known as Aloysius, ordered.

‘Even if you kidnap His Holiness, you won’t get them,’ William argued, enervated.

‘I doubt that.’

The Mercedes squealed to a stop so hard that William and Tarcisio were almost thrown into the front.

‘We’re here,’ Nicolas said.

Tarcisio tried to see where ‘here’ was, but the street seemed the same as so many others.

They opened the car doors and pushed the elderly prelates inside a closed van that had stopped next to them.

‘Get in,’ Schmidt ordered. ‘Get inside.’

They continued on their way without rush. A few hundred feet further they saw one of the Volvos from the Holy See burst into the Piazza dell’Esquilino, almost colliding with a bus coming from Termini, and head for the Mercedes at full speed.

Nicolas and Schmidt smiled. ‘They’re stupid,’ Schmidt gloated.

‘Where are we going? Where are you taking us?’ Tarcisio asked uncomfortably, seated on the floor in the back of the van.

Schmidt showed the same cynical smile with which he had mocked them at the beginning of the trip. ‘We’re going to take a walk, boys. Behave yourselves.’ He turned to look at Nicolas and assumed a strict expression. ‘It’s time to ask for the ransom.’

The plane began its descent into Fiumicino Airport while flying over Livorno. They’d experienced some turbulence, especially over the peninsula. The stopover at Orly had been quick. Gavache said good-bye to them in his typical way with an ‘Au revoir, but I hope not’ to the men, and a smile for Sarah. He insisted on lightly touching her hair, as if caressing a daughter. He made her promise a future visit to the City of Lights and then left with the faithful Jean-Paul at his back.

Twenty minutes later they took off for Fiumicino. Sarah and Rafael, who had been accompanied on the flight to Paris by Gavache and Jean-Paul, were now alone, each absorbed in their own lives and thoughts. Rafael thought about speaking to her. It would be a good opportunity to find out everything that had happened, but ever since that one-sided conversation in Walker’s Wine and Ale Bar, their relationship had cooled to the point where it could no longer be called a relationship. A relationship was what she had with Francesco, the Italian journalist. Yes, he knew about the Italian journalist. He tried to keep himself informed about her life through surveillance. He enjoyed thinking that she knew, although she couldn’t have. After Francesco came into her life, Rafael felt he shouldn’t interfere. He did, however, investigate Francesco’s criminal record. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he hadn’t. After finding a clean record, except for a few traffic tickets, he decided that she was in good company. Until Jacopo had burst into his classroom at the Gregorian to inform him about Zafer’s death…